2018 is an important transition year in the history of World Migratory Bird Day - unifying the planet’s major migratory bird corridors, or flyways: the African-Eurasian flyway, the East Asian-Australasian flyway, and the Americas flyways. Celebrated from now on twice a year, on the Second Saturday in May and in October, WMBD aims to reach out to a broader audience and amplify its message for bird conservation. As a new global platform that unifies efforts worldwide, WMBD will be reinforcing education and awareness-raising about the need to protect migratory birds and their habitats - at all different levels, in all parts of the world.

WMBD around the world

ACCESS FLYWAYS

Through the activities being undertaken on these three flyways and the resulting exchange of information, WMBD wishes to increase the level of awareness about the threats – both general and specific – that birds are facing. By comparing their experiences and concerns, sharing their stories and activities, people around the world will make their voices and actions reach out even further, throughout the flyways, underlying the fact that bird conservation is, indeed, a global issue.

STORIES

To mark World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) 2018, the CMS and AEWA Secretariats co-organized two local WMBD events in Bonn, Germany. The first event was a film screening in the Museum Koenig and the second event was a birdwatching tour in the forests around Bonn. The two events in Bonn, were among the 400 + registered events which took place in 68 countries around the world to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day in May. On May 9, the WMBD team organized a film screening of Winged Migration (2001) at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig. Filmed over the course of four years, the film directed by Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats and Jacques Perrin, follows the journeys of migratory birds across wetlands, plains, mountains, seas and deserts.

In their incredible journeys, birds brave the ferocity of nature’s forces and suffer from the most negative side effects of humankind’s development. Today is the day to raise our voices to remember the beauty of nature and the reasons why we want and need to protect it. https://t.co/3eUbN3gOid